


MBWLAYWGS: Alternate Universes

by LockedBox



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universes, Character Study, Childhood Trauma, Corbin and his Baggage, Daemons, Lauchlan and his Many Issues, M/M, Mix Beer With Liquor and You Will Get Sicker, POV Alternating, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Spoilers!, There are so many spoilers guys, seriously, writing exercises
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 20:35:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5840113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LockedBox/pseuds/LockedBox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlets, prompts, and writing exercises I’ve written in a bid to beat writers block and try to keep myself enthusiastic. Mainly ficlets and alternate universes of Mix Beer with Liquor and You Will Get Sicker.  There are spoilers for events up to and exceeding the currently posted content. Abandon hope all ye who enter here, for these ficlets may not be continued or completed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Truer Words Were Never Spoken (Chapter 1)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Mix Beer With Liquor And You Will Get Sicker](https://archiveofourown.org/works/722719) by [LockedBox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LockedBox/pseuds/LockedBox). 



> These are au’s and character exercises written surrounding the Mix Beer With Liquor and You Will Get Sicker story and characters. I’ve always liked writing these as a bit of a practice and a little fun from time to time. It freshens up the palate so to speak. Unfortunately, I’m still having a lot of trouble with chapter fourteen. I actually ended up painting myself into a corner not once but twice, and the first two versions have been completely scrapped due to me writing myself into a plot hole. I’ve been trying to redistribute a few scenes around, and I think I’m back on track now, but goddamn was it a pain. I ended up puttering around, writing some au’s just to try and get my enthusiasm back, and I figured some people might like to read them. It felt only fair to give you guys something after keeping you all waiting for so long. I might not finish them, and they aren’t exactly very good, but it’s better than nothing, right?
> 
> Full warning, there are spoilers for MBWLAYWGS, both from the chapters that are already up and some stuff from what will be chapters sixteen and onward, or later if they go through mitosis again. It’s up to you to decide if you’re okay with that because I don't even know if Im going to get it done by the end of this bloody year like I wanted to. I can't blame you either way, especially given that chapter fourteen still isn’t ready yet. 
> 
> Spoilers aside, these ficlets will mainly be cheesy things and writing exercises. Right now, I’ve got a daemon au, and a soulmate au. They’re cheesy and a little hackneyed, but I’ve always had a soft spot for these kinds of things. I can’t really articulate why I like them so much, I just do. Hopefully you guys will as well.

The words happened differently for everyone. Some people were born with them, stilted sentences written in childish scrawl, barely legible. They met their matches in the cradle, still so young and clinging to their mothers skirts, and went into life with their match at their side, or at their backs, right from the start.

 

For some people, they didn’t happen at all, or rather, they happened too late to be useful. People died, such was life, nothing to be done about it, and most of them left their matches behind long before the words were even spoken, so they faded, as if they never were. For some people, the words came after they met, long after they and their match had fallen into step with eachother, either as lovers, or as something else. Just the powers-that-be’s way of saying “You’ve done well for yourself, you should keep it up.”

 

For some people they came, and then they went. People changed, and wordmatches, knowingly or unknowingly, could outgrow eachother. Sometimes the words changed, sometimes they faded away, and then new ones came in months or even years later, sometimes they stuck around, only for a new set to come in, joining the old, renewing but not replacing.

 

Some people couldn’t even read theirs. The rich were always throwing money at literacy charities, trying to teach the children their letters and numbers so that everyone would have a chance at happiness, but mostly it was just to raise their own profile, rather than genuine caring. Throwing money at problems didn’t solve them. Not many of the programs worked, and they almost always got turned into a profiteering venture, if they weren’t created that way. Workhouses and sweatshops, promising education for indentured service. Few worked, and still, there remained that unfortunate underclass who could never even read their own words, if they even had them. Most of the illiterate didn’t have words at all. But they still had something, a feeling, a gut instinct, a way of just, knowing who their match was. He knew a bloke once, who didn’t learn to read right until he was in his fourties. He’d known a couple of his letters before, but he had just never got round learning the rest, to putting them all together, learning his spelling and his grammar. His words came, one letter at a time, as he learned, and he didn’t even seem surprised.

 

“They’ve always been there. I know what they’ll say. I just gotta learn how to writ em down proper now, is all,” he’d said, and he’d believed him. You couldn’t fake that kind of conviction.

 

Some people had, symbols, instead of words, strange, abstract squiggles, or even drawings. Some people had their words in exotic, foreign languages. Sometimes, those people were rich, educated folk, who would travel the globe on exotic world tours, sometimes they were poor seafarers, who worked the seas for months at a time, or colonists, who settled England’s far flung colonies in search of a better life. Sometimes he wondered if the words appeared in foreign tongues because the wordbearers were travellers, and were bound to go to the foreign lands that spoke them some day, or if they decided to travel to foreign lands and learn foreign tongues just because their words were written so. Seemed a bit of a chicken and egg situation, but which way round it went didn’t really change anything, in the end.

 

His own words, well, word, he didn’t really know what to make of.

 

The coming, or going, of words was supposed to be a momentous occasion. He was supposed to be struck, as if by lightning, with the knowing of it, or at least, he was supposed to feel _something_. Some people said that they burned coming in, others that the letters itched and crawled, and some said that it felt like being touched by a phantom, like some indelible hand had reached down from the heavens, and wrote their words upon them with a gentle, lovers touch.

 

He hadn’t felt anything. For a long while, he hadn’t even noticed that it was there.

 

See, he only had one word. Most people had a sentence, some more than just one, some people just had a short greeting, or an introduction, but he just had one, tiny, insignificant word.

 

He remembered, in hindsight, rousing in the middle of the night one night. He’d had a dream, not a bad dream or a good dream, just one of those odd ones that he could never remember, apart from a lingering sense of oddness. Then he’d turned over and gone back to sleep again. It could have been nothing. It might not have happened then at all. But it was the only thing he could remember that might have been his word coming to him. Though looking back on it, it was probably just another odd dream. Either way, they’d been strapped for money then, more so than usual, so he had gone round sweeping chimneys out after he was let out of his drydock job. He was still small enough to do a decent job of it, despite being a year or two older than most of the other sweepers in town. Just a few days work had left him covered in ash and soot, blackened by it, caked into his hair and under his fingernails, into the pores of his skin, his face, and after a week he just couldn’t take it anymore. He’d fobbed off work, filled the old laundry tub with cold water and spend hours trying to scrub it all off. The water had turned coal black the moment he’d submerged, and he refilled it four times over before he got anywhere near clean. The word, he had thought it was just a bit of soot at first, and he had scrubbed at it and scrubbed at it, trying to get it off, until he had got fed up, and held it up to the daylight to get a better look at whatever was stuck on him.

 

And there it was. A tiny, black word, standing out against his skin, red and raw from the scrubbing and the soap.

 

“ _Sorry_.” It said. The script was tiny, tight italicized cursive, the letters so close to one another that the edges bled into eachother, the tail of the y curling up to cup the bottom of the word, the period miniscule, and round and perfect, smaller than a pinhead, and yet still more distinct than any of the other characters. The word was hidden, for lack of a better word, in the crook of his left arm, in the crease of skin where his elbow bent, half hidden by his own dark hair and the curve of his bicep. The only way to actually read it was for him to take off his shirt, and stretch his arm up above his head, twist his wrist to the left and tilt his head back, so that he looked at it at his eyelevel, and even then, it was so small, and so indistinct, that he could barely believe it wasn’t the smear of soot he thought it was. It was barely as big as his thumbnail, if even that.

 

“ _Sorry._ ” It said. It was an apology. Apologizing for being so small and hard as hell to read, apologising for being stuck on him of all people, apologising for not telling him it was going to bloody show up on his arm, apologising for hiding for so long, apologising for existing at all.

 

He didn’t tell anyone about it. Didn’t see the point. What were they going to do? Tell them that they were _sorry_ his word was so bloody vague and tiny? He doubted it. He didn’t even need to buy a sleeve or a cuff for it, no one ever noticed it, not even when he folded his sleeves up and bared it for all the world to see. It just wasn’t noticeable, might as well not be there at all really.

 

The most gauling part though, was that people told him “sorry,” all the bloody time, but no one ever meant it.

 

He’d bump into someone on the street, and they’d either bump him back or mutter a quick “excuse me,” or “sorry” as they hustled by. Sometimes he’d go to the bank and the teller would tell him “sorry sir, but your interest rate has been raised.” Sometimes women, poor women, young women, fallen women, woman in the family way or women with the clap or the pox, would come into his apothecary, he’d ask them if he could help and then they would break down, “Sorry, sorry I shouldn’t be here,” and then they’d run out again. Sometimes, people would shove him when his back was turned, knock things off his shelves, and turn to him and sneer “Oh, so _sorry”_ without even the decency to pretend they weren’t laughing.

 

For years, that word, that bloody word would plunge like a knife into his guts and twist, every time he heard it. Because no one meant it. Sure, sometimes they meant to apologise, but they didn’t _mean_ it. They didn’t care. They would never say it the way he wished someone would say it. He didn’t even know how that was. He just wanted, he didn’t know, just wanted something. Some way of _knowing_. Someone to listen to him and recognise what he said. Someone to say it and _mean_ something. Really, actually mean something.

 

But years rolled on, and people kept on saying it and it never meant a thing.

 

It started to lose its meaning, after a while, if it ever had any. Stopped twisting at his gut. He was grateful, for that. He was still a bit bitter about it, but it was better to be bitter than to have that knife twisting in his gut whenever someone said it and didn’t mean anything, which was all the bloody time. Futile hope was a painful thing, and he couldn’t keep on going like he had been forever. He didn’t even know what he hoped for. Matches weren’t all sweetness and light, his own wretched parents had been matches, for heavens sake, and they, well, he would sooner die, than be like them. Sooner stab himself in the bloody heart and be done with it.

 

Maybe this was the powers-that-be’s way of apologising to him. Apologising for screwing him over his whole bloody life. No match for him, just an empty, meaningless apology.

 

He would have rather have no words at all.

 

But the world had never much cared about what he wanted.


	2. Truer Words Were Never Spoken (Chapter 2)

Lauchlan’s words were late in coming. Twenty nine was not so old he had given up, of course. He knew, logically, that getting the words was hardly going to be the same as hearing them, and that there were many who waited their whole lives to heard theirs, so it was not as if his waiting would be up. But he had been waiting for twenty nine years now, and when his entire life spanned for exactly that time, twenty nine years felt as long as an eternity.

 

He remembered, fondly, when he’d been a little boy, and his mother had woken him up in the night, pulled him onto her lap. He’d watched, as the gentle letters curled around her clavicle, elegant, looping calligraphy, sepia ink dyed against her light, freckled skin, as if it belonged there all along.

 

“What does it say dearheart?” she’d asked him, so he’d read to her.

 

“Nonsense, it is a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Huxley,” he read. “It looks like Mr Adderley's handwriting,” he said, and he’d know. Mr Adderley had been teaching him to write in the evenings, when they were both finished with their work. He studied his handwriting everyday.

 

“Does it now?” she gasped, her eyes watering.

 

“But I thought they were supposed to be the first words he said to you.”

 

“They are dearheart. They just, came in a little late I suppose. Oh my.”

 

“Are you going to get married now?” he’d asked, completely without tact.

 

“I, I don’t know dearheart, I, this is oh,” he had started sobbing then, and clutched him close.

 

“I love you so much, dearheart, so much” she’d gasped.

 

“I love you too mother. I’m sure Mr Adderly will too,” Lauchlan hadn’t known what to do, other than to hold her back. It wasn’t the most sensitive thing to say in retrospect, but he was six, and thankfully, he was right.

 

The two of them had gone off to have a private word, the next morning. He didn’t ask what had been said, but, Mr Adderly quickly became Theodore. He sat him down, and he asked him, gravely, with not a hint of insincerity, if he would be alright with Theodore becoming part of his family. He’d said of course, because really, he was as good as family already and he was six, so as far as he was concerned, their words made them as good as married already.

 

Theodore had courted her slowly, properly. Brought her little tokens every day, flowers, and chocolates, took her on walks around the garden, luncheons at teahouses, but always with Lauchlan as their tiny chaperone and in the evenings she joined him in his writing lessons, and they both learned to read and write together.

 

He knew when Theodore’s words came in. He was a blunt child, but not blind. Sometimes, after their lessons were over, Theodore would rest his hand on his breastbone, right over his heart, and make this sound, that was not a gasp, and not a sigh, but both and neither, with a look of sheer awe in his eyes, and Lauchlan knew that a new letter had formed there, and soon more and more made up his words as Mother learned them.

 

They married in the Autumn, when the air was cool but not too chilly, and the trees were dressed in gold. Mother penned the invitations all by herself, and let him stamp them with the sealing wax. He’d never seen her look so proud.

 

Theodore became stepfather, and mothers words changed again.

 

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Adderly,” he’d said, and she’d laughed, glowing from their wedding kiss, and the words shifted, just a little, to match.

 

He had never seen Theodore’s words, that would be a bit too much, even as much as he loved the man. But he knew what they said. He’d been there after all.

 

“Oh, my goodness, I hope I am not intruding sir,” she’d said, after she had all but bumped into the man in the pantry.

 

“Nonsense, it is a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Huxley. I’ve heard much about you already. Our housekeeper spoke quite highly of you, and she’s not a lady easily impressed,” he’d laughed, and bowed his head, lifting his hat without a hint of sarcasm. He came back out, a tea caddy in hand.

 

“I do hope that I can continue to surpass such lofty expectations then,” she had said, smiling, and joining in the brevity as he laughed, and went about preparing a pot.

 

“I shall be looking forward to it then,” he’d said. “In the meantime, tea and sandwiches will have to suffice for afternoon tea. You best take the time to get settled in.”

 

She eyed the spread with a critical gaze, weighing the bread, the quality of the jam, the fine china teaset with a critical eye, and raised her chin.

 

“Dash that. I can do better than _sandwiches_ ,” she’d said, drawing out the word like it had offended her, and the two of them could only sit back as she proceeded to bring the entire kitchen to heel.

 

It was a good memory.

 

He had a lot of good memories back then, when the world was simpler. Theodore had loved his mother, his mother had loved Theodore, Theodore and his Mother had loved him, and he had loved his mother and Theodore. Then dear Claire had been born and they all loved her, and she loved all of them.

 

When Claire was two months old, she got her first words.

 

They were lopsided, and wobbly, and they weren’t legible at all, but they were definitely meant to be words. A child’s first, messy attempt at words, but words all the same, scrawled over her shoulderblades like badly scribbled wings.

 

He was at an awkward age then, all gangly, clumsy limbs, oily faced and flat footed. He had thought that everyone had to wait until they were older, like his Mother and Theodore, but there she was, just a few scant months old, with her words, when he had nothing.

 

It had upset him. He had thought, well, he hadn’t known what to think. Every morning he’d wake up, and then he’d strip off his nightshirt and search himself, hoping that his words would have come too, but they never did.

 

His mother took him aside, once she noticed his distress, though with a two month old baby to look after, that had taken a little while longer than it might have otherwise.

 

“Dearheart, these things happen at their own pace, and the heart will decide on its own time. You mustn’t rush it.”

 

“I just want to know Mother. Just a hint, a clue, something.”

 

“Don’t you remember, when my words, came, and you read them to me?” she asked, softly, brushing her hand against her clavicle in memory.

 

“Of course I do, I could never forget.”

 

“Before I met your father, I, I had a different set of words. I never knew what they said. They faded, after you were born.”

 

He had gaped at her then, aghast by the revelation.

 

“These thing’s aren’t set in stone, my dear. I loved your Father, and I love you, you are my son, my boy, I love you so much. Your Father, I don’t know what those first words said, I didn’t want to know, but your Father cared for me, all the same, and I cared for him. We were happy together. You don’t need the words to be happy, and sometimes, maybe the words aren’t meant to be. If I hadn’t married your father you wouldn’t be here, and if you weren’t here, I wouldn’t know these words, and I wouldn’t have Theodore, or Claire. I wouldn’t have you. I don’t know what sort of woman I’d be, but I doubt I’d be so very happy, as you have made me. Have faith dearheart, and have patience, if it is to be, it will be, all in it’s own time. And if it is not, then there is no reason that you can’t fall in love and be happy all the same.”

 

“How, how could you not want to know?”

 

“I was happy as I was, dearheart. I didn’t care enough to know,” she said, smiling and ran a hand through his hair. He wasn’t sure if he understood, but he believed her all the same.

 

But then, months passed, and the Jackdaw happened, and everything got so very, very out of hand.

 

He’d given up on it, after the Jackdaw. Who would ever want him? A half-blind, fool, with both feet in poverty and no way to climb out. His days in the spike were his darkest, he didn’t even bother looking any more, didn’t see the point. He’d wallowed in his own misery, his own loneliness for weeks, months, before he managed to dig himself out of it, crawling out of the spike and back into the world. Of course no one would want him when he was so caught up in his own misery. The mark wasn’t a promise, wasn’t a guarantee, it was a privilege and he knew, then, that he needed to _earn_ it.

 

So he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and got back to the streets, all but begging for anyone who might take him in, and then he found Percival, earned his apprenticeship, and got his life back on track.

 

The words still didn’t come, not even with Ida, and he’d been so sure, so certain that Ida was it, the one, his one. But she wasn’t. She had her own words. He was just an experiment for her, a stepping stone, a brief bit of entertainment and nothing more.

 

He wasn’t sure what to do with himself, after Ida left. He just, carried on, going through the motions day after day. What else could he do? He’d waited, and he’d bargained, and he’d worked, but they weren’t coming. He tried not to let it depress him, to try and be happy regardless, but he might as well try to hold back the tide with nothing but his bare hands.

 

Jasper, good friend he was, dragged him out from time to time, either to try and cheer him up or to try and get him drunk enough to forget. Lauchlan didn’t care much for drinking, but there were certainly nights when he appreciated the end result.

 

His boss was marrying his match, on Sunday. He didn’t know the man very well, he submitted his reports, and his books, and the company finances to the man of course but Mr Burke was rich enough now to manage his business though intermediaries, and as such they had spoken only on rare occasions, usually only when there was something wrong, making the lack of contact was a relief, all thing considered.

 

Still, though, when the announcement was made, it stung. It was spoke poorly of him, and of his character he knew, Mr Burke had always seemed a fair and honest man, and he deserved his happiness, but Lauchlan would have rather he hadn’t known of another finding their match, of another finding the happiness he had been looking for, for so long now.

 

It was not in such poor taste that he would not attend the Stag he had been so graciously invited to though. Though, in retrospect, he probably should not have told Jasper. He had spoken to Mr Burke only briefly, but he did seem rather surprised to see a veritable horde of his underlings turn up at the Arms.

 

Lauchlan felt guilty of course, but then Jasper had got him drinking and he stopped worrying. Mr Burke had his match to go home to, at the end of the night. He was sure he’d be fine, all things being equal.

 

He chatted with the cabbies for a while, but after a time was content to simply prop up the bar. Jasper had goaded him into drinking far more that he would dare on his own, and his head was spinning, the sounds of the packed pub watery and muted by his intoxication. He was content for now, to watch as everyone had a good time. It was nice, watching people in their revels. It was soothing, in it’s way. It wasn’t as if he had much of a choice, at any rate. He feared that if he got to his feet, he’d sooner end up in a heap on the floor than he would home.

 

“I’m not with them!” The man’s voice carried, rising above the din, and Lauchlan turned curiously. There was a stranger at the bar, looking rumbled and soaked by rain, leaning over the bar to speak to the publican, who was stooped over an untapped keg as his daughters scurried about him.

 

He was short, having to rise up on his toes to look over he counter, and dressed in a dark green coat with sleeved far too long for him. He was pale, but ruddy cheeked from the cold, and his hair was black and curled wildly. He sported a pair of mutton chops that were neatly kept but long out of fashion. They suited him though, framing his wide, square jaw and high cheekbones.

 

“It don’t matter if you’re with them or not, I’ve got a get this keg tapped and I’ve got at least two rounds on back order before I can get to you. I’m sorry mate but we’ve got a stag in tonight, we’re spread about as thin as we can be,” shouted the bartender in return.

 

“How much for a pint of imperial then? Got any of that on tap?” he shouted.

 

“Four pence and two farden,” said the publican, without looking up from his keg.

 

“You can’t be serious,” the man remarked, frowning.

 

“It’s the proper stuff, Imperial Russian Stout imported especially, not that Russian styled nonsense. I can give you a half pint for thruppence if that’s more to your budget, or a full pint of Oyster Stout for tuppence, if you’re willing to wait,” said the publican.

 

“And how long do you want me to bloody wait?”

 

“As long as you bloody have to mate. I told you we’re spread thin. You can wait or you can go, it ain’t my issue,” snapped the publican.

 

“That’s ridiculous. Honestly, I know as well as you do that that’s just a ploy to sell pints. You can’t tell me people pay that much for one bloody pint,” the man barked.

 

“You can know as much as Archimedes, but the price is still going to be four pence and two farden,” the publican snapped back, still refusing to look up from his keg.

 

The man’s scowl deepened, and he rocked back onto his heels. He reached for his pocket, lightly thumbing the contents, as if counting. Lauchlan gulped, guilt wearing on his conscious as the man clearly struggled with his budget. Honestly, the man looked worse for wear, draggled, and his clothes were scruffy and ill fitted, likely bought used. Lauchlan worried his lip guiltily, and reached for his own coin purse. Honestly, if he hadn’t gone and opened his mouth half these people wouldn’t even be here, and, well, that _was_ a lot to pay for a simple pint of stout. A lot more for the bedraggled stranger than him, by the look of things.

 

Mind made up, he plucked a sixpence from his purse and slid it along the counter, knocking it twice for the publicans attention, and then nodding toward the man.

 

“You sure there, friend?” said the publican as he popped up from below the counter. He nodded, and the publican huffed, but took his money without a fuss.

 

Conscious soothed, he leaned back against the wall, slightly dizzy and tired from the drink. The man approached him again a moment later, a pewter mug in his hand, a frown still plastered on his face.

 

“Thankyou for that, but I would rather if you hadn’t,” he said, and, at that the air seemed to still, his every nerve prickling, his every hair on end, and he felt, something, everything, it.

 

The vibrations of it, of those words trembled through him, plucking at his nerved, and they sunk, slowly into him. It felt like burning, but without heat or cold. The sensation of it, quick and deep and sharp, it carved themselves into him, searing into his bones, and deeper still.

 

Oh god, he wasn’t ready for this, he wasn’t drunk enough for this, he wasn’t _sober_ enough for this, this couldn’t be happening, not here, not now, but it _was_ happening whether he was ready or not.

 

“Sorry?” he asked, half in question and half in apology. He could barely keep himself from falling off his stool from the shock, from the sensation of the words carving into him. He could feel his skin rearranging, on one of his legs, feel them manifesting.

 

The man sighed, and rolled his eyes, entirely unmoved.

 

“Look, I appreciate the shout and all, but I’m not so hard done by I can’t afford to buy myself a pint. I’m just not about to sit here and be taken for a fool, you understand?” he said conversationally.

 

“I, I just, wanted to be polite. It’s not your fault they're out after all, it, it’d hardly be fair, and I, I don’t mind shouting,” he stuttered, his hands trembling a little from the shock. His match was, here, _here_ in front of him _._ He was nothing like he expected, nothing like he’d dared to hope, but god almighty he had a _match_.

 

The man, his _match_ , frowned, and squeezed the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb.

 

“Well, like I said, I’d have rather you hadn’t, but it’s done I suppose,” he said, and held out a few coins to him.

 

“Oh, no please, you don’t, I don’t want you to, pay me back, I meant it’s all-“

 

“I’m not. This is your change, for a sixpence, the barman said,” he interrupted his stuttering sharply, his expression flat and patience clearly thin.

 

Lauchlan blushed sharply, and meekly took the proffered coinage.

 

“I’m Huxley, Lauchlan Huxley, I mean, my name is Huxley, ah, pleased to meet you,” Lauchlan, stuttered his words tripping over each other in their rush to escape, and he held out his hand, hopefully.

 

His match cocked his head a little, and took a sip of his pint. For a long nerve wracking moment, Lauchlan was sure he’d turn and walk away, but instead, he sat, perching lightly on the stool beside him, and shook the hand he offered.

 

His hand was wide, warm, and roughly calloused, just the feeling of it in his made him giddy. God, this was his _match_.

 

“Corbin Scargill,” he replied, and sipped, again.

 

Lauchlan’s new words throbbed, and he smiled, giddy and lightheaded and foolish with joy.

 

Perhaps twenty nine years was not so long a wait after all.


	3. Neither Fish Nor Fowl (chapter 1)

The snake was black as night. Lauchlan hadn’t see enough of her to say any more than that. Corbin kept her hidden away, tucked into his shirt, or up his sleeve, where she huddled around him for warmth. He supposed the winter air must be awfully chilly for her, from what he understood, snakes were sensitive to the cold and usually hid away for the winter. Where they went, he was not sure. The old gardener always made it out that they travelled south for the season, like ducks, but that couldn’t be right. How would a snake cross the channel? It’s not as if they could all just charter a ship or some such ridiculousness. It wasn’t really relevant anyway, Corbin could hardly be parted from his daemon, and neither could he abandon his apothecary to travel south with her. He caught glimpses of her, from time to time, as he took off his coat, or, on the odd occasion, the rest of his clothing.

 

The best look he’d had of her was the first time he’d seen her. When they’d spent their first night together, in the hayloft. Corbin had left her downstairs, bundling her up in Lauchlan’s shed coat, and laying her down by the fire, so they would have privacy as they had tumbled in the hayloft, but she must have grown cold over the night. When he woke the next morning, he had felt her, rather than saw her, coiled up between their bodies, leeching the heat from them, but when he’d shifted to look at her, she had roused, and vanished down the back of Corbin’s shirt, and he had glimpsed only the tip of her inky black tail.

 

“The cold makes her tired.” Corbin had said, shrugging, “she sleeps for weeks at a time, when the weathers like this. She’ll come out in the spring when it’s warmer.”

 

He understood the importance of letting her rest, but he had to admit, not even being able to see her, just once, just to say hello and introduce himself, was a little hurtful, but he was hardly about to tell Corbin how to take care of his own daemon. That would be utterly caddish.

 

Agnes had little to say on the matter, as always, but she would rest her head on his shoulder and comb her bill through his hair, soothing him whenever he got too deep in his head about it.

 

He didn’t know what he did to deserve a daemon like Agnes. After all he’d put her through, he was sure she’d settle as a mouse or a moth and hide somewhere, pretending to have nothing to do with him, but she hadn’t. She’d been the strong one. The one to get him to make him pick himself up and keep going, if not in so many words. She gave him the strength to have faith in himself, when no one else had, least of all him. He didn’t know how he’d have coped without her.

 

When he’d been a child, she’d usually stay in small, compact forms. A sparrow, a dormouse, a robin, a butterfly, a pond frog, though thankfully she hadn’t chosen to stay that way for long. It had been such a hassle to carry wet cloths about everywhere to keep her moist. While he worked, she’d usually stay in his pocket, or on his shoulder, his quiet, steadfast companion. As he’d grown older, and his responsibilities more serious, more taxing, she’d started chipping in. When there were dishes to be cleaned she’d be a nimble stoat, cleaning out the bottoms of glasses and the insides of the vases for him. When there were windows to be washed, she’d be an agile squirrel, fearless on even the highest sills. When there was carrying to be done, she’d be a sturdy little pony, small enough to fit through the hallways, but still strong enough to pull her own weight. When the Jackdaw happened, when he was clinging to that branch with nowhere to go but down, she’d become a pine marten. She’d clung to the branch with her paws and his wrist with her tail, and she’d tried, oh lord, she had tried so hard to protect him. She hadn’t succeeded, but she’d tried, while he’d been scared witless, unable to do anything but cling and scream and weep, she, at least, had used her head and tried to save him. She was better than him that way.

 

She’d avoided birds after that. He wasn’t entirely sure if that was his doing, or hers, but it happened all the same.

 

She was a hound for a while. A white, Pyrenean mountain dog, and she stayed, steadfast by his blindside, keeping him safe. She was the only thing that kept him from colapsing in on himself, in those dark days. She stayed that way for months, and he was sure she’d settled that way, but she hadn’t, not yet. The hound wasn’t quite right for her.

 

She began shifting, again, when he got his apprenticeship. She tried a few horses for a while. A steady Clydesdale, a regal Friesian, a powerful Shire, even a slight Dutch harness horse, but as much as they admired and respected the beasts, none of them ever sat right with her, and they soon gave up on horses all together.

 

The answer came to them, quite unexpectedly, one day in the spring. There was a little public park in town, on the hill, with an avenue of old oak trees and beds of tulips and petunias, and at the end of the avenue was a wide, shallow pond, filled with waterlilies and pretty yellow carp. It was peaceful there, and he liked to visit there on Sundays when the weather was fine, and just enjoy the tranquillity of it. He and Agnes would sit, and watch the people come and go, picnicking, and strolling and playing with model boats, iron hoops, and balls, and feeding the geese and the ducks. It was a good place to sit and just enjoy the day.

 

But, one day it had been unexpectedly hot, he had dressed warmly, expecting a breeze, but there had been none, and he was contemplating cutting his visit short when Agnes had got up, and gone from a ginger housecat to a brown pintail, and hopped into the pond to cool herself off.

 

They had been avoiding birds, after the Jackdaw, but he found that it was impossible to be afraid of a duck. It wasn’t nearly the same. To his surprise, something about it felt, right. She paddled, and he watched, and the longer she went, the more comfortable it felt. He’d forgotten just how much time she’d spent as birds, before the mess with the Jackdaw. She’d been robins, sparrows, goldfinches, even a sweet little budgie, and they had had such fun, her whistling and flittering about, keeping him company as he worked, and he knew she liked water, for all her insistence at being a frog for that long, arduous week.

 

He caught her eye, across the water, and she just looked so happy, to paddle and flap about. She liked flying, loved it even. How could he have denied her this? He spent the rest of the day at that pond, just watching her play about in the water, and she stayed as the pintail all week.

 

But it was the next Sunday at that pond, that everything fell so neatly into place.

 

She had taken to the water, and was puttering about between the lilypads, happy as could be, when one of the local hens took objection to her. The animals could make no distinction between her and any other beast. As far as they were concerned, she was one of them, and she was encroaching on their territory. It dove at her, puling at her long tail with its beak and quacking angrily. He sprang up, shouting in pain and alarm, and Agnes, shifted, becoming something larger, stronger, and he felt something, settle, deep inside of him, falling into place.

 

The hen flapped off, terrified of the, immense, angry swan that had appeared in front of it, and she settled, gracefully, back into the water, shaking her tail and relaxing her long neck into an artful curve.

 

They stood, he at the shore, and her in the water, just, looking at each other, breathless by what that just happened. People were staring, he could tell, but what could he say? His daemon had just settled, right in the middle of the busy park, and she was beautiful. She bobbed over to shore, and nudged his hand with her bill, and he came back to his senses with a jolt.

 

“Are you alright Agnes?” he asked, cupping her head in his hand, and marvelling at the sleekness of her feathers.

 

She tilted her head, contemplating for a while, and then nodded.

 

He realised, later, that Agnes was a mute swan. It fit, in a way. They had never spoken much to each other, not like other people seemed to do. They understood each other well enough without words, and Agnes had always been more of a listener, than a conversationalist. He knew her, understood her, and she him, and that was good enough for them.

 

Things were a bit different, now that they were settled properly. He was heckled, and teased for a while, but it passed, and he honestly couldn’t care any less. He was so proud of her, so lucky to have her.

 

He wondered why Corbin never spoke to his daemon, or about her, for that matter. He didn’t even know her name. Perhaps he didn’t want to disturb her sleep, or some such thing, but still. It sat wrong with him, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he was hiding something.


End file.
